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Month: August 2016

New York Magazine has published a great article about how grad student Steven Ludeke tried to correct mistakes in the research of Pete Hatemi and Brad Verhulst. Overall, Ludeke summarises his experience as ‘not recommendable’. Back in my undergraduate years I spotted an error in an article by David DeMatteo and did little to correct it. Why?

Christian Bale playing a non-incarcerated American Psycho.

David DeMatteo, assistant professor in Psychology at Drexel University, investigates psychopathy. In 2010, I was a lowly undergraduate student and noticed a glaring mistake in one of his top ten publications which has now been cited 50 times according to Google Scholar.

The error

The study investigated the characteristics of psychopaths who live among us, the non-incarcerated population. How do these psychopaths manage to avoid prison? DeMatteo et al. (2006) measured their psychopathy in terms of personality features and in terms of overt behaviours. ‘Participants exhibited the core personality features of psychopathy (Factor 1) to a greater extent than the core behavioral features of psychopathy (Factor 2). This finding may be helpful in explaining why many of the study participants, despite having elevated levels of psychopathic characteristics, have had no prior involvement with the criminal justice system.’ (p. 142)

The glaring mistake in this publication is that Factor 2 scores at 7.1 (the behavioural features of psychopathy) are actually higher than the Factor 1 scores at 5.2 (the personality features of psychopathy). The numbers tell the exactly opposite story to the words.

The error in short. The numbers obviously do not match up with the statement.

The numbers are given twice in the paper making a typo unlikely (p. 138 and p. 139). Adjusting the scores for the maxima of the scales that they are from (factor 1 x/x_max = 0.325 < factor 2 x/x_max=0.394) or the sample maximum (factor 1 x/x_max_obtained = 0.433 < factor 2 x/x_max_obtained = 0.44375) makes no difference. No outlier rejection is mentioned in the paper.

In sum, it appears as if DeMatteo and his co-authors interpret their numbers in a way which makes intuitive sense but which is in direct contradiction to their own data. When researchers disagree with their own data, we have a real problem.

The reaction

1) Self doubt. I consulted with my professor (the late Paddy O’Donnel) who confirmed the glaring mistake.

2) Contact the author. I contacted DeMatteo in 2010 but his e-mail response was evasive and did nothing to resolve the issue. I have contacted him again, inviting him to react to this post.

3) Check others’ reactions. I found three publications which cited DeMatteo et al.’s article (Rucevic, 2010; Gao & Raine, 2010; Ullrich et al., 2008) and simply ignored the contradictory numbers. They went with the story that community dwelling psychopaths show psychopathic personalities more than psychopathic behaviours, even though the data in the article favours the exactly opposite conclusion.

4) Realising my predicament. At this point I realised my options. Either I pursued this full force while finishing a degree and, afterwards, moving on to my Master’s in a different country. Or I let it go. I had a suspicion which Ludeke’s story in New York Magazine confirmed: in these situations one has much to lose and little to gain. Pursuing a mistake in the research literature is ‘clearly a bad choice’ according to Ludeke.

The current situation

And now this blog post detailing my experience. Why? Well, on the one hand, I have very little to lose from a disagreement with DeMatteo as I certainly don’t want a career in law psychology research and perhaps not even in research in general. The balance went from ‘little to gain, much to lose’ to ‘little to gain, little to lose’. On the other hand, following my recent blog posts and article (Kunert, 2016) about the replication crisis in Psychology, I have come to the conclusion that science cynicism is not the way forward. So, I finally went fully transparent.

I am not particularly happy with how I handled this whole affair. I have zero documentation of my contact with DeMatteo. So, expect his word to stand against mine soon. I also feel I should have taken a risk earlier in exposing this. But then, I used to be passionate about science and wanted a career in it. I didn’t want to make enemies before I had even started my Master’s degree.

In short, only once I stopped caring about my career in science did I find the space to care about science itself.

Academic conferences have been the biggest joy of my PhD and so I want to share with others how to excel at this academic tradition.

The author (second from right, with can) at his first music cognition conference (SMPC 2013 in Toronto) which – despite appearances – he attended by himself.

1) Socialising

A conference is not all about getting to know facts. It’s all about getting to know people. Go to a conference where you feel you can approach people. Attend every single preparatory excursion/workshop/symposium, every social event, every networking lunch. Sit at a table where you know no-one at all. Talk to the person next to you in every queue. At first, you will have only tiny chats. Later, these first contacts can develop over lunch. Still later you publish a paper together (Kunert & Slevc, 2015). The peer-review process might make you think that academics are awful know-it-alls. At a conference you will discover that they are actually interesting, intelligent and sociable people. Meet them!

2) Honesty

The conference bar is a mythical place where researchers talk about their actual findings, their actual doubts, their actual thoughts. If you want to get rid of the nagging feeling that you are an academic failure, talk to researchers at a conference. You will see that the published literature is a very polished version of what is really going on in research groups. It will help you put your own findings into perspective.

3) Openness

You can get even more out of a conference if you let go of your fear of being scooped and answer other people’s honesty with being open about what you do. I personally felt somewhat isolated with my research project at my institute. Conferences were more or less the only place to meet people with shared academic interests. Being open there didn’t just improve the bond with other academics, it led to concrete improvements of my research (Kunert et al., 2016).

4) Tourism

Get out of the conference hotel and explore the city. More often than not conferences are held in suspiciously nice places. Come a few days early, get rid of your jet-lag while exploring the local sights. Stay a few days longer and gather your thoughts before heading back to normal life. You might never again have an excuse to go to so many nice places so easily.

5) Spontaneity

The most important answer is yes. You might get asked for all sorts of things to do during the conference. Just say yes. I attended the Gran’ Ol Opry in Nashville. I found myself in a jacuzzi in Redwood, CA. I attended a transvestite bar in Toronto. All with people I barely knew. All with little to no information on what the invitation entailed. Just say yes and see what happens.

It might sound terribly intimidating to go to an academic conference if you just started your PhD. In this case a national or student only conference might be a good first step into the academic conference tradition.

Conferences are the absolute highlight of academia. Don’t miss out on them.